Marin Readers' Forum for July 26

Recalls involving Marin supervisors are rare. The last recall of a Marin County board member occurred in 1961 during the heated debate over the fate of the Civic Center when Supervisor J. Walter Blair was ousted and replaced by Peter Behr.

The idea of recall to some is a waste of $250,000. Not necessarily so.

If the present action does remove Supervisor Susan Adams, it will put on notice to the remaining supervisors that they also can be removed.

Perhaps their future actions could be more in line with what their constituents feel they are lacking now.

They are not impervious to recall.

We have been short-changed by their spending ways, slush funds, the Association of Bay Area Governments, etc.

Gerard S. Sample, Mill Valley

Enabling lawbreaking

It has been a few weeks now since the trail incident that badly injured an equestrian and her horse.

The IJ has been full of blame since this incident — mountain bikers and skittish horses. Lack of enough trails and single track trails.

But to me the blame rests clearly and squarely with the Marin County supervisors who for 15 years have encouraged the discussion of accommodating expanded mountain bike use onto single-track trails barely wide enough for two humans or one horse.

Is it any wonder that we find so many mountain bikers using single-track trails?

And yes, they are. These riders are just getting a head start on what our supervisors have encouraged them to think is going to be their legal right.

Our supervisors have failed to say no and have encouraged dangerous misuse of our trail system.

As our supervisors express their horror at the injury from this most recent equestrian injury and the fleeing riders, they should be looking directly into a mirror. They have found the problem and it is them.

Phil Paisley, Ross

Fighting to save sprawl?

"Rebels with a Cause" is a must-see for anyone who wants to know how Marin was saved.

The people who worked for the preservation had a vision that saw the beauty of the wild places as something inherently valuable in its own right.

They bucked the current trends of the day, which assumed that all development was a good thing.

They didn't shout down their opponents at meetings, defame people, bully or threaten the local leaders. They collaborated with their opponents, the West Marin ranchers, which not only helped create the parklands, but ultimately preserved Marin's local agriculture as well.

The visionaries of today are not the unruly mobs that storm the Plan Bay Area meetings crying "socialism."

Those people are not protecting large tracks of natural landscape, they are protecting low-density sprawl.

Plan Bay Area opponents are right in line with the current view of the day that all development is a bad thing. The true visionaries are the organizations like TranForm and Greenbelt Alliance that lobbied hard to get our state, regional and local officials to understand that, for future growth to reduce traffic and greenhouse gases, it needs to be integrated with shops and jobs, and be near transit with good bike and pedestrian facilities.

This is the very definition of small-town character.

These are the current day "Rebels" from the movie, putting forth a positive vision for the future, and bucking the trends of the day.

Plan Bay Area is the continuation of the efforts of the latter-day "Rebels," continuing to protect open space by directing new development toward our city centers.